生活与工作两不误才是完美的人生，那么生活和工作真的可以实现平衡吗?Nigel Marsh博士认为完美的一天建立在与家人相处，个人发展以及工作三者之间的平衡之上，进而他鼓励人们让这一理想变为现实。下面是小编为大家收集关于TED英语演讲：生活和工作真的可以实现平衡吗?欢迎借鉴参考。

　　生活和工作真的可以实现平衡吗?

　　演讲者：Nigel Marsh

　　What I thought I would do is I would start with a simple request. I'd like all of you to pause for a moment, you wretched weaklings, and take stock of your miserable existence.

　　我原本想以一个简单的请求开场。我请求在座的各位思考片刻，你们这群可悲的懦夫，扪心自问，审视一下自身可怜的存在。

　　Now that was the advice that St. Benedict gave his rather startled followers in the fifth century. It was the advice that I decided to follow myself when I turned 40. Up until that moment, I had been that classic corporate warrior -- I was eating too much, I was drinking too much, I was working too hard and I was neglecting the family. And I decided that I would try and turn my life around.

　　其实这正是 5世纪时圣本笃给信众的建议，可以想见，当时他们必定相当惊诧。而在我40岁的时候 我也决定采纳并实施这个建议。在那之前，我绝对是个典型的业务精英——我吃的太多，喝得太多，工作太努力，我忽视了自己的家庭。于是我决定试着改变我的生活。

　　In particular, I decided I would try to address the thorny issue of work-life balance. So I stepped back from the workforce, and I spent a year at home with my wife and four young children. But all I learned about work-life balance from that year was that I found it quite easy to balance work and life when I didn't have any work. (Laughter) Not a very useful skill, especially when the money runs out.

　　而且我决定 我要尝试处理一个棘手的问题： 即工作与生活的平衡。于是我递交辞呈，赋闲在家，与妻子和四个儿子相处了一年。但是在那一年中关于工作与生活平衡这个问题，我唯一的收获是：如果我不工作，这个问题就会迎刃而解。(笑声) 这的确不怎么管用，尤其是缺钱的时候。

　　So I went back to work, and I've spent these seven years since struggling with, studying and writing about work-life balance. And I have four observations I'd like to share with you today. The first is: if society's to make any progress on this issue, we need an honest debate. But the trouble is so many people talk so much rubbish about work-life balance.

　　所以我回到工作岗位，七年以来我的挣扎，学习与写作都围绕着工作与生活的平衡这个主题。今天我想跟各位分享四点心得。第一， 如果在这一问题上想要获得实质性的进展，那么我们需要一个诚恳的探讨。

　　All the discussions about flexi-time or dress-down Fridays or paternity leave only serve to mask the core issue, which is that certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family.

　　但问题是在这一问题上，人们大多沉浸在毫无意义的争论之中。无论是弹性时间还是星期五的休闲装政策亦或是育儿假，这些都只是进一步掩盖了核心问题，即某些职业和某些职业选择从根本上讲就与每天与自己的家庭亲密相处这一生活方式水火不容。

　　Now the first step in solving any problem is acknowledging the reality of the situation you're in. And the reality of the society that we're in is there are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like.

　　要解决任何问题，都必须首先认清自己所处的境况。而现实社会中的情况是成千上万的人们 都在无声的绝望中煎熬。他们夜以继日的从事他们痛恨的职业目的只是为了购买无用的商品以博得无关痛痒的邻人的艳羡。

　　It's my contention that going to work on Friday in jeans and [a] T-shirt isn't really getting to the nub of the issue.

　　我的观点是，星期五穿牛仔体恤并不能解决关键问题。

　　The second observation I'd like to make is we need to face the truth that governments and corporations aren't going to solve this issue for us. We should stop looking outside. It's up to us as individuals to take control and responsibility for the type of lives that we want to lead.

　　我想分享的第二点心得是我们必须面对现实：政府和公司不会为我们解决这一问题。我们不能再寻找外援，而应该作为个人承担起掌控自己生活轨迹的重任。

　　If you don't design your life, someone else will design it for you, and you may just not like their idea of balance. It's particularly important -- this isn't on the World Wide Web, is it? I'm about to get fired -- it's particularly important that you never put the quality of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation. Now I'm not talking here just about the bad companies -- the "abattoirs of the human soul," as I call them.

　　如果你不规划自己的生活，那么别人就会为你规划，而他们对于平衡的处理你往往并不认同。最重要的是——这东西不会传到互联网上吧，要不然我可要被解雇了—— 最重要的是你绝不能让商业公司来掌控你生活的质量。我指的并不仅仅是那些糟糕的公司——我把那些公司叫做人类灵魂的屠宰场。

　　I'm talking about all companies. Because commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you [as] they can get away with. It's in their nature; it's in their DNA; it's what they do -- even the good, well-intentioned companies. On the one hand, putting childcare facilities in the workplace is wonderful and enlightened.

　　我指的是所有的公司。因为商业公司本质上就是为了尽可能多的榨取你的价值而同时尽量逃避责任。这是深植于商业公司之中的基因。它们以此立足——包括那些好的，有善心的公司。一方面，在工作场所开办儿童保育中心是个很妙的，具有启发性的好主意。

　　On the other hand, it's a nightmare -- it just means you spend more time at the bloody office.We have to be responsible for setting and enforcing the boundaries that we want in our life.

　　另一方面，这同时是个噩梦;因为这意味着你得在万恶的办公室里耗上更多时间。 我们自己得担起责任 去设定并强化 我们生活中的各种界限。

　　The third observation is we have to be careful with the time frame that we choose upon which to judge our balance. Before I went back to work after my year at home, I sat down and I wrote out a detailed, step-by-step description of the ideal balanced day that I aspired to. And it went like this: wake up well rested after a good night's sleep. Have sex. Walk the dog. Have breakfast with my wife and children. Have sex again.

　　第三点是我们得好好考虑以什么样的时间单位来衡量我们试图实现的平衡。在一年赋闲时 就在我回到工作岗位之前， 我坐下来 细细地 一步一步地勾勒了一幅我向往的完美一天的理想蓝图。具体如下：充足的睡眠之后，精神抖擞的醒来。做爱。遛狗。与妻儿共进早餐。做爱。

　　Drive the kids to school on the way to the office. Do three hours' work. Play a sport with a friend at lunchtime. Do another three hours' work. Meet some mates in the pub for an early evening drink. Drive home for dinner with my wife and kids. Meditate for half an hour. Have sex. Walk the dog. Have sex again. Go to bed.

　　上班的途中送孩子去学校。 工作三小时。午休时和朋友玩玩体育。再工作三小时。下午和老伙计们在酒吧喝两杯。 回家与妻儿共进晚餐。花半个小时静修思考。做爱。遛狗。做爱。上床睡觉。

　　How often do you think I have that day? (Laughter) We need to be realistic. You can't do itall in one day. We need to elongate the time frame upon which we judge the balance in our life, but we need to elongate it without falling into the trap of the "I'll have a life when I retire, when my kids have left home, when my wife has divorced me, my health is failing, I've got no mates or interests left." A day is too short; "after I retire" is too long. There's got to be a middle way.

　　你觉得我多久能享受如此的一天? (笑声) 我们当然要实际一些。你不可能在一天内实现这一切。我们得把时间单位拉长来衡量我们期望的平衡，但是这一拉长也不是没有限度的比如，你最好别说：“我会享受生活的，当我退休了，当子女也都独立，当妻子已弃我而去，当我的身体大不如前， 当我已没有朋友，也没有任何兴趣爱好。” 一天太短，退休又太长。肯定会有折中的办法。

　　A fourth observation: We need to approach balance in a balanced way. A friend came to see me last year -- and she doesn't mind me telling this story -- a friend came to see me last year and said, "Nigel, I've read your book. And I realize that my life is completely out of balance. It's totally dominated by work. I work 10 hours a day; I commute two hours a day. All of my relationships have failed. There's nothing in my life apart from my work. So I've decided to get a grip and sort it out. So I joined a gym."

　　第四点心得：要实现平衡，我们得采取“平衡”的办法。去年我有个朋友来找我—— 她不介意我公开这个故事——去年她来我这儿， 她说：“奈吉尔，我看了你的书。我意识到我的生活完全没有平衡可言。它完全被无休止的工作占据。我每天工作10小时，路上就要花2小时。我的人际关系总是失败。在我生活中除了工作，没有别的。所以我决定得振作起来改观我的生活。于是我加入了健身俱乐部。

　　Now I don't mean to mock, but being a fit 10-hour-a-day office rat isn't more balanced; it's more fit. (Laughter) Lovely though physical exercise may be, there are other parts to life -- there's the intellectual side; there's the emotional side; there's the spiritual side. And to be balanced, I believe we have to attend to all of those areas -- not just do 50 stomach crunches.

　　我不是要嘲笑她，但是一个“健康”的每天工作10小时的办公室职员 并不会让她更“平衡”，而只能更“健康”(笑声) 健身运动的确是不错，但生活的含义其实很丰富。知性生活，情感生活，精神生活。如果想达到平衡，我觉得我们得关照以上的各个方面——仅仅50个仰卧起坐是不够的。

　　Now that can be daunting. Because people say, "Bloody hell mate, I haven't got time to get fit. You want me to go to church and call my mother." And I understand. I truly understand how that can be daunting. But an incident that happened a couple of years ago gave me a new perspective.

　　这可能看起来相当艰巨。人们会说：“拜托伙计，我连锻炼的时间都没有，你却要我去教堂、给老妈打电话。” 我很理解。我真的很理解，对人们来说这的确挺艰巨。 但两年前有件小事却给了我一个崭新的视角。

　　My wife, who is somewhere in the audience today, called me up at the office and said, "Nigel, you need to pick our youngest son" -- Harry -- "up from school." Because she had to be somewhere else with the other three children for that evening. So I left work an hour early that afternoon and picked Harry up at the school gates. We walked down to the local park, messed around on the swings, played some silly games. I then walked him up the hill to the local cafe, and we shared a pizza for two, then walked down the hill to our home, and I gave him his bath and put him in his Batman pajamas. I then read him a chapter of Roald Dahl's "James and the Giant Peach."

　　我妻子就坐在下面一天她给我的办公室打电话说 “奈吉尔，你得去学校 接我们的小儿子哈里。” 因为那天晚上她和其他三个孩子在一起。于是那天下午我提前一小时下班在校门口接到哈里。我们去了公园，在秋千上闹了一阵，做了些傻傻的游戏。 然后我带他上了一座小山到了当地的一家咖啡馆，我们点了茶和比萨，吃完就下山回家，我给他洗了个澡， 给他穿上蝙蝠侠睡衣。然后我给他读了一章 Roald Dahl的《詹姆斯与飞天巨桃》。

　　I then put him to bed, tucked him in, gave him a kiss on his forehead and said, "Goodnight, mate," and walked out of his bedroom. As I was walking out of his bedroom, he said, "Dad?" I went, "Yes, mate?" He went, "Dad, this has been the best day of my life, ever." I hadn't done anything, hadn't taken him to Disney World or bought him a Playstation.

　　然后我铺好床，安顿好他， 吻了他的额头，说了声“晚安，伙计。” 然后走出他的卧室。 正当我走到门口的时候， 他叫了声老爸。“什么事，伙计?” 他说，“老爸，这是我一生中 最棒的一天，最棒的。” 其实我什么也没做。我没带他去迪斯尼乐园，也没给他买游戏机。

　　Now my point is the small things matter. Being more balanced doesn't mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. Moreover, I think, it can transform society.

　　我想说的是，小事并非无关紧要。在生活中实现平衡并不意味着你要大张旗鼓的颠覆你的生活。在适当的地方做些小小的投资，你就能极大地改善你的人际关系 和生活质量。不仅如此，我认为这还能改变整个社会。

　　Because if enough people do it, we can change society's definition of success away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well lived looks like. And that, I think, is an idea worth spreading.

　　因为，如果很多人都如此生活，那么我们就可以重新对社会上的所谓“成功”进行定义：成功不再是以死后财产的多少来愚蠢地衡量; 成功应该有一个更具平衡性和思想性的定义，即一个美好的生活的实现。 我认为这的确是一个值得与众人分享的点子。

　　生活和工作真的可以实现平衡吗观后感

　　一、人人都会遇到的问题：负面情绪

　　以下负面情绪你是否似曾相识：

　　我都牺牲了这么多，你们还不理解我!

　　我累成这样还在做家务，你们怎么回报我的?

　　我下了班就：做饭/收拾房间/带孩子…………你却：躺着/看电视/跟朋友出去玩………………

　　我都这么努力了，为什么总有意外打破我的计划?

　　坦率的问一问自己，是不是常常有这种想法呢?这些负面的情绪，会导致我们稍有不顺就很容易就会爆发。即使不爆发，我们的心情也会长期阴天。而一个阴天的妈妈，会让整个家庭都晴转多云。想要改变这一点，必须把那个被“牺牲”了的自己找回来——本来，也没有人要求我们必须牺牲自己。只要妈妈的内心足够强大，就能保持稳定的心理状态，变化带给我们的烦躁感也就自然消除了。一旦情绪的问题解决了，那么很多问题就不再是问题。

　　这就是每个人都如此关心工作与生活之间的平衡的理由。抱怨工作与生活之间没能很好地平衡，这不过是一种自我放纵的行为。我们生活的终极目标就是为了自我感觉良好，这种理念对于社会发展毫无意义。它源于对积极心理学的曲解，事实上，积极心理学推崇的是自我发展和自我成长，而不是自我陶醉和自我放纵。

　　二、你想成为什么样的人?

　　你如何对以下列出了以下七个方面进行排序?

　　a)家庭(父母、儿女、兄弟姐妹等)

　　b)社交(朋友、人脉)

　　c)精神追求(信仰、人生观、情感观)

　　d)身体状况(健康、幸福)

　　e)物质状况(物质环境、财产)

　　f)业余爱好(个人爱好等其他业余活动)

　　g)事业追求(短期和长期目标)

　　针对每个方面，问自己三个问题：在这个方面，我想成为怎样的人?我想在这方面拥有多少体验?在有限的时间、精力和资源下，相对于生活中的其他方面，这个方面对我有多重要?

　　在考虑这些问题时，要注意下面两点。首先，每个方面都会面临独特的挑战。因此在梳理问题时，要确保你面对的是一个个可以解决的独立问题，而不是一个令人望而生畏的巨无霸整体，这一点至关重要。其次，你对这些方面的判断会改变，而且确实会改变。那么，如何判断?我们的方法是：对于当下你志在成为什么人，以及你期望未来留下什么资产，分别做出规划，用这些规划来指导自己分配资源。这种愿景规划非常重要，尤其当你在生活中失去平衡或即将犯错的时候。

　　三、工作与生活如何兼得看看他们怎么说?

　　1、以健康为代价的坚持，不一定是对的

　　创新工场创始人、谷歌中国区前总裁李开复患癌后，中国企业家纷纷开始反省自己。多数企业家自省要多跟家人在一起。李开复微博坦言工作与家庭确实是一个鱼与熊掌难以得兼的问题，需要相当的承诺和持续的沟通才能很好解决。李开复谈起自己以往的工作信念，他在微博中写到，他以往给自己的负荷一直比较重，坚持每天努力挤出三小时时间工作，还曾天真的和人比赛“谁的睡眠更少”、“谁能在凌晨里及时回复邮件”……努力把“拼命”作为自己的一个标签。“现在，冷静下来反思：这种以健康为代价的坚持，不一定是对的。”

　　2、用高质量的时间来安排生活

　　不幸患上乳腺癌的滴滴总裁柳青那疯狂的奋斗史，她的工作狂到什么地步：柳青有三个孩子，周末需要经常开会，孩子周末见不着，她让孩子转学到公立学校。滴滴开会开到特别晚，公司内部团队为她“贴心”地想到了一个方案：每天晚上柳青9点下班，回家哄娃娃睡觉，十一点后在她楼下开会。为了她的事业，为了对了起她柳传志女儿的身份，柳青可真是拼了，可是拼到最后的结果却是身体机能的直线下降，以至于患上了乳腺癌。

　　柳青自己觉得绝对的平衡是很难的，这就是你不可能每时每刻都保持一个平衡。关键就是有一个80、20这么一个说法，比如说跟家人，我是相信用高质量的时间来安排生活，比如说像我要在家陪家人，或者陪小朋友，那我还是会非常投入非常专心的，不会说陪他们玩的时候看手机。我觉得最重要的就是你花的时间，哪怕只有半个小时、一个小时，但大家能感觉这是一种很投入的沟通。所以其实我在家每天的时间并不是很长，但质量比较高。我觉得跟我的孩子们感情非常好，有那种心连心的感觉。跟家人或者是平衡自己的生活，更多的是用心而不是用时间。

　　3、不做会死的事，一定要做的事就一定要把它干掉!

　　新精英职业生涯导师赵昂接受MBA智库的专访时对于如何平衡生活与工作时间，昂sir认为一个阶段有一个阶段的一个重点，每天也有每天的重点，关键在于分清重点。工作和生活要平衡，这个平衡不能随意。把重要的事情安排出来，这些就是必做的事。不做会死的事，一定要做!一定要做的事就一定要把它干掉!在每天临睡前把第二天的重要事情安排好。昂sir举例说，每天必须要写作，这是必须要做的事。白天有干扰的事情比较多，那我可能会选择早上四点多钟起来写作，手机也不开机，七点多钟写完了，然后开始各种沟通开始一天工作。对于年轻人最重要的是思考先考虑能力再考虑价值最后才是平衡。这是昂sir给30几岁有一定工作经验、刚成家立业、面临房子孩子等压力人群的建议。

　　总之，要真正成功平衡工作与生活，惟一的方法就是：遵从内心的喜好，找到自己的使命，学着去欣然接受工作与生活之间的不平衡。